Towels are generally woven on looms to include a ground fabric and an extra set of warp yarns. The yarns of this extra set are interlaced with the ground warp and filling yarns to form a plurality of loops or cut ends which extend outwardly from one or both surfaces of the ground fabric to form a pile.
Because towels are generally used to dry other objects, they are customarily designed to be highly absorbent. To this end, towels have historically been manufactured from all or substantially all cellulosic yarns such as cotton yarns.
While cellulosic fibers have been found to be advantageous in many respects (i.e., they are absorbent, relatively durable, and generally available), they also present several drawbacks. Typically, fibers protrude from the surface of the fabric which can entangle during use, particularly during laundering, and form "pills" or fuzz balls. For example, shorter, weaker fibers tend to work to the surface during the laundry cycles and be trapped by longer and stronger fibers. This can result in a very undesirable appearance of the towel.
Enzyme hydrolysis of cotton is currently practiced to reduce the strength of the stronger fibers to allow the pills to break away. Typically towels are subjected to enzyme hydrolysis after the towels have been sewn to finished dimensions, thus requiring additional processing steps. In addition, the process is relatively expensive.